Neck Pain Treatment in Newport Beach, CA

Comprehensive Consultation and Exam

At Priestley Family Chiropractic, before we can assess your neck pain we must perform a thorough consultation and neurological exam. The consultation gives our doctors the opportunity to really listen and understand your specific problems and how they have affected your life. We can also capture key bits of information about your condition that help us find out what is causing it.

In the examination, we will perform a thorough evaluation of your spine and nervous system. We palpate your spine for subluxations and check your posture with bilateral scales to see if you are carrying your weight evenly. Then, we do nerve scans that tell us where you have pressure on your nerves causing muscle tension or nerve interference which affects the proper function of your organs and glands. We also assess how stressed your body is in a resting state with a Heart Rate Variability test. Depending on those findings, we do digital X-rays to locate subluxations, determine how long they have been there, and assess what phase of degeneration your spine is in. These tests allow us to give you corrective chiropractic care specific to you.

Pain is your body signaling that something isn’t functioning properly. When we find out what is causing it, we can correct function and eliminate pain.

Specific Chiropractic Care

Many times, neck pain is due to a condition called subluxation. Subluxations occur when a bone or section of the spine shifts out of its normal position. This causes interference and irritation to the nerves, which can cause symptoms such as neck pain, headaches, pain into the arms and shoulders, and numbness and tingling. Subluxations also affect how well your spine can move. If these misalignments are not corrected, over time, they can cause degeneration of the joints and lead to arthritis.

At Priestley Family Chiropractic, we perform specific adjustments to the spine which remove pressure from the nerves and allow the joints to move easier. Subluxations can be resolved through chiropractic care, but it can take time, especially for a chronic problem. By removing subluxation from the neck, proper function can be restored to the nerves and symptoms can diminish. If the root cause of your problem is coming from a subluxation in the cervical spine you will continue to have symptoms until it is addressed. That is why Chiropractic is so crucial to eliminating neck pain.

Custom Therapeutic Exercise Plan

Neck pain often originates from muscle imbalances due to poor posture. Forward head posture is one of the most common issues that causes it. This imbalance can cause muscle weakness and tightness in the neck, upper back, and shoulders that causes our posture to distort. At Priestley Family Chiropractic, our doctors create a custom exercise plan that will help to correct postural distortions and restore balance to the neck. This balance and stability allow our patients to hold their chiropractic adjustments better and longer, providing more sustained relief from conditions like neck pain.

Subluxation

Subluxation is the condition that chiropractors are specially trained to identify and correct. When a bone or section of the spine in the neck shifts out of its normal position, it can cause pressure on the nearby nerves. This can cause symptoms such as neck pain, headaches, or even numbness and tingling into the arms or hands.

Many times neck pain is treated with exercises, massages, stretches, or even medications. You can’t exercise, massage, stretch, or drug subluxations away. The only thing that can correct a subluxation is a specific chiropractic adjustment. Chiropractors are the only doctors who are trained to properly correct subluxation in the spine. Chiropractic adjustments are gentle and specific and can provide instant relief for neck pain caused by subluxation.

Muscle Strain

Muscle strain is an injury that is caused by overstretching or even tearing a muscle or tendon. Muscle strain can be caused by too many hours hunched over your computer or smartphone, a hectic drive through rush hour traffic, even reading in bed can strain your neck muscles. Chiropractic helps the body to recover more quickly so we recommend getting a muscle strain checked out immediately.

Tech Neck

Tech neck is a term that refers to postural problems that occur due to looking down at our electronic devices or working at desks for too long. The average person is now on their phone for around 4 hours per day! Tech neck typically presents with forward head posture, which increases stress on the neck joints and muscles. Forward head posture also reduces – and in some cases, reverses – the natural curve of the neck, which can create chronic neck issues. Priestley Family Chiropractic specializes in helping people improve their posture and alleviate neck pain that stems from Tech Neck.

Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is a condition that causes narrowing of joint space and is commonly seen in the neck. It takes a long time to develop, sometimes even decades, and is usually the long-term result of things like poor posture, lack of motion, or traumatic injuries.

Our joints need to move in order to stay healthy. When we don’t move our joints enough, or have poor posture, they gradually wear down. Osteoarthritis can also cause changes in the bone called bone spurs. These abnormal growths irritate nerves in the neck, causing neck pain. Chiropractic care and exercise are essential for managing osteoarthritis and slowing down its progression.

Bulged or Herniated Cervical Discs

Between each vertebra in the neck are discs, which provide support for our neck joints and allow movement to occur. A vertebral disc contains a jelly-like substance in the middle called a nucleus, which is surrounded by rings of cartilage. Due to postural stresses or repetitive movement, the cartilage can be damaged. This causes the nucleus to take the path of least resistance and push into the damaged area. When the nucleus pushes through the last layer of cartilage, the disc has herniated into the space where spinal nerves are located. This causes inflammation, bringing intense neck pain that can radiate down into the arms.

Chiropractic adjustments have been proven to provide tremendous relief from these symptoms. If left untreated surgery may be necessary to fix a disc herniation, so it is important to address the problem as quickly as possible in order to avoid surgery.

Degenerative Disc Disease

Like other joints in your body, the ones in your neck tend to wear down with use and overuse. Osteoarthritis, commonly referred to as wear-and-tear arthritis, is the most common cause of joint deterioration. Chiropractic can not only stop the progress of the degeneration but in some cases even reverse it.